He grinned. “Aw, did that hurt? It’s your own fault. Liars don’t fare well around here.”
Deborah pulled out her vial and syringe. “You’re about, what . . . a hundred-twenty pounds, give or take?”
Tara weighed more like one thirty, but the lower estimation might encourage Deborah to lighten the dosage.
“That’s what I weighed before you dragged me out of the Chosen and starved me and made me puke.”
Deborah shrugged. “Good enough.” Squeezing in next to where Samuel held Tara’s forearm tight to the table, she tied the rubber tubing around her biceps. That done, she lifted a vial with a vaguely dirty-looking liquid in it and sucked about a third of the liquid into the syringe.
“Enjoy the ride,” she said as she jammed the needle into Tara’s arm and depressed the plunger.
The injection stung a bit, though not as badly as the antidote to the drug they’d been feeding the Chosen. Immediately after Deborah pulled the needle from Tara’s arm, Samuel began cutting the leather straps that tied her to the chair.
Tara was prepared to fight, to punch and kick and do as much damage as possible the minute she was free despite the pitch and roll of her stomach, but before Samuel had even gotten to the strap around her first foot, her whole body went soft, weak, and warm. Every muscle relaxed at once, and even the ache in her fingers disappeared.
“Nice, isn’t it?” Deborah asked.
Tara wanted to say no, but she couldn’t. In truth, despite the fact that she was forming words in her head, she was pretty sure she wasn’t saying them aloud. Samuel and Deborah left, but she had a hard time caring. She did her best to keep her injuries and her desperate situation in the forefront of her mind, but they kept slipping away.
Her body was so loose and relaxed that at one point she slumped down and fell off the chair. Which struck her as hilarious. She should just lie down on the floor and rest. That would be nice. But her mouth was very dry, and there was water on the table. Although it seemed like an enormous effort, she climbed to her feet and reached for the bottle. It took two tries to get the cap off because, despite the warm, comfortable fuzziness surrounding her, her injured left hand refused to do any work.
And then, when she’d sucked down the water, nausea struck again in crippling waves. She crawled over to the toilet and vomited up all the liquid she’d consumed. Christ, she was tired. She put her head down on the floor and dozed off. She woke because her skin itched, and her first attempt to scratch her right arm when she forgot about the condition of her fingers send a brutal shock of pain up her left that chased off the cloudy comfort. Her limbs still felt heavy, her muscles unwilling to work, but her brain came partway back to life.
How long had she been in dreamland? How long until Samuel and Deborah came back to question her again? She forced her feet under her and went to the window. Dusk covered the sky. She felt as if she’d been imprisoned for weeks, but it had only been a day. She needed out. Now. She reached between
the bars on the window and grabbed the chicken wire, wiggling it back and forth to loosen it. Before she could entirely free it, however, she heard the key in the door behind her. She scuttled backward into the space between the toilet and the wall, the only place that offered any cover.
This time, Deborah had the blond goon—Curt—with her. She also carried the little black case.
“Ah, Sleeping Beauty is awake,” she said. “Perfect. I imagine you’re feeling pretty good.”
And Tara was. Her hand hardly hurt at all. After the initial jolt, when she’d scraped her nail-less fingers over her skin, the pain had subsided again to a dull throb. But damned if she’d tell Deborah that.
“I can make sure the pain doesn’t come back,” Deborah said. “All you have to do is tell me how much you and your electronics-obsessed boyfriend discovered about our operation. In detail.”
“I don’t want your drugs,” Tara said. “I may be feeling the effects, but I’m not stupid.”
“Ah. I thought that might be your answer. It’s one of the problems with being high. You forget what pain feels like. Curt?”
The man didn’t even bother coming to get Tara. He just grabbed hold of the chain and yanked. She tried to remain in her corner, but her muscles wouldn’t cooperate and she felt herself being dragged forward. At first, she stayed on the ground, where she had better leverage, but it was in vain, and she didn’t want to be on the floor at his feet, so she stood to face him. He grinned.
Tara was having a hard time breathing. Her lungs didn’t seem to want to expand. She watched the glitter in Curt’s eyes and her lizard brain screamed for action, but her body simply refused to fight back. Deborah produced a pair of handcuffs and—though Tara twisted and wriggled and ducked—snapped her wrists together behind her back. From his pocket, Curt pulled a heavy-duty folding KA-BAR knife. Tara’s father had used the same one as a hunting knife. It didn’t inspire either pleasant memories or confidence.
With Deborah standing behind Tara and holding her in place, he sliced through the cotton of her T-shirt, the knife’s tip leaving a paper-thin line of blood from her collarbone to her waist. She didn’t feel it at first, and then it began to burn. Curt put the tip of the knife against the top of her right breast and with a quick twist of his wrist cut a divot out of her flesh as if he were coring a tomato.
Tara’s breath left her in a rush and a scream. Instinctively, she tried to bring her hands up to press down on the wound, but they were still cuffed behind her, so instead she sank to the floor and pressed her chest into her knees.
“That was just a little reminder,” Deborah said. “Anything you want to tell us?”
“I don’t know what you want.”
Deborah sighed. “We’ll be back.” She unsnapped the cuffs. “There’s a guard outside. If you change your mind, you can call him to get me.”
• • •
Tara’s whole body hurt. Impossibly, given the circumstances, she’d fallen asleep again. But then, she’d seen junkies sleep under the most extreme conditions. Through the window, she could see the moon high in the sky. She pulled at the wire, wiggling and yanking until the whole rectangle came free of the window. Cement, dry and crumbly, coated the corners.
Her left hand was useless, so she stood on the mesh with her left foot to stabilize it and worked one wire loose. When she had about two inches unwrapped, she carried it over to the table and used the edge of the table to work it up and down until it broke free of the rest. Then she rolled up the larger piece of chicken wire and stored it next to the toilet, where it was less visible.
She turned her attention to the handcuff holding her to the chain, ignoring the sight of her bloody and swollen fingers. She inserted the wire partway into the cuff’s lock and bent it, then bent it again, creating a small, S-shaped hook.
And now for the hard part. She’d spent hours practicing to beat her classmates in lock-picking skills, but that had been years ago, and her skills had no doubt gone rusty. She inserted the hooked end of the wire under the lip of the cuff lock and felt for the catch. No joy. A deep breath and she tried again.
And again.
On her fifth try, she felt the pin in the lock lift, and the cuff slipped open.
Now what?
The only object in the room she could use as a weapon was the chair. They wouldn’t be expecting her to wait for them next to the door. Not only wasn’t the chain long enough, but she’d so far held herself far away from her tormenters. Next time they came, she’d take out whoever walked in first, try to grab a weapon, and hope for the best. It wasn’t much of a plan, but she didn’t have many options.
But of course, now that she was ready for them, neither Samuel nor Deborah returned. Hours passed, and the aftermath of the injection threatened to suck her under again. She forced herself to stand and stretch out each of her limbs in turn. She would do some Tai Chi forms. That woul
d keep her awake.
She was well into the third form when footsteps echoed in the corridor. She snatched the chair from its spot on the floor and took up position next to the door just as a key turned in the lock. The door opened, and she brought the chair crashing down on Samuel’s head. He went down like a sack of potatoes.
Deborah shouted and guards came running. Tara reached for the gun holstered at Samuel’s hip—he hadn’t worn it the other times they’d come for her, and she couldn’t stop to analyze its meaning—but before she could free it, one of the guards landed on top of her.
“Don’t kill her!” she heard Deborah yell, and then the guard bashed her head into the hard cement floor.
Dazed, she felt herself dragged back into the room. The guards held her down while Deborah prepared a syringe and injected her again.
“If it were up to me,” she said coldly. “I’d give you to Samuel to play with. I wouldn’t count on him being kind next time.”
Kind? Tara almost laughed, but the nausea slammed into her and all she could do was retch. And then, hard as she fought it, the deep, soothing warmth flooded her veins and relaxed her muscles, sending her to that place where nothing hurt and no one yelled and she was beautiful and graceful and loved.
• • •
TREY COULDN’T HIDE his military background, not with that haircut, but when he met Jake in the lobby the next morning, he had changed into a T-shirt that said, “Bad Girls Do” and a pair of ratty jeans. For his part, Marco wore a plain white T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The color emphasized his dark skin and shaggy dark hair. He could easily have passed for a Mexican native, which was, perhaps the point. Each man carried a single piece of carry-on luggage, the same cheap brand Ethan had brought Jake’s new clothes in. Nothing for an inquisitive ICE agent to worry about.
Despite Jake’s twin black eyes and the prominent bandage that circled his skull, the border guard barely glanced at them before stamping their passports and wishing them a good day.
Have a nice time in Juárez, folks. Try not to get dead, Jake thought as the man waved them through. Not for nothing had Juárez frequently been called the murder capital of the world. Sinaloa, Juárez, Los Hijos, the Zetas . . . every major Mexican cartel had a presence in the city. But when Marco had told the border agent he was taking his buddies to taste his second cousin’s cooking so they could see what real Mexican food was, the man hadn’t even blinked.
In the peculiar way of cities like Detroit that those with means to do so frequently fled, Juárez seemed only half-alive. Well-maintained buildings backed to crumbling disasters. They parked in front of a small walk-up and went inside. After fifteen minutes in the empty lobby, they exited out the back. Trey led them down a garbage-strewn alley then out into a larger street, where a van idled at the curb. Marco slid the panel door open and they hopped inside.
“Any trouble?” the driver asked. He was dark complected, with almost blue-black hair, but he wore it short and curly where Marco’s was long and straight. He was also, Jake noted, built like a tank. Not made for running, but his hands handled the van with absolute assurance on the rough roads.
“No trouble. You heard anything?”
“Not a word. Who’s the new guy?”
“Jake Nolan.” Jake reached forward from the back seat, and the guy stuck his hand over the seat and shook.
“Miguel Perez. I’ll be your pilot.”
“Ah. So you work for HSE as well?”
“Miguel’s an independent contractor. He helps us out from time to time.”
The man laughed. “You make me sound charitable. Nash Harper pays me well for my assistance.”
“That’s between you and him. Jake here’s FBI. The asset is a friend of his.”
Miguel glanced back at Jake. “You going to be okay going in?”
“Damned straight.” Or so he hoped.
“Did you get everything?” Marco asked.
“Yes. Though I must say, it was not easy to get the rifles. A four-sixteen and a four-seventeen, along with the handguns. They cost a pretty penny.”
“As long as they work.”
“They work. I field-tested each of them. But you’ll need to see for yourself. Make adjustments. We’ll do that now.”
Weapons. Harper hadn’t been bragging when he claimed his contacts could get them what they needed. The Heckler & Koch 417 was popular among snipers, being basically a larger, heavier version of the 416, their standard assault rifle. But neither the HK416 or HK417 would be as easy to get in Mexico as a standard M4 used by most of the American military. Which meant that either Marco or Trey was a trained sniper, because snipers were notoriously unwilling to use unfamiliar weapons. He’d bet on Marco. The man hardly ever spoke and carried himself—when he wasn’t playing laid-back half-Mexican dude on vacation—with a particular stillness.
“Scopes and suppressors, too?” Marco asked, confirming his suspicion. “Of course. Do I not always find what you require?”
“That you do,” Trey said.
After more than an hour’s drive on the highway, they turned off into a sparsely populated area. Another forty minutes passed before they pulled up in front of a low, white stucco building. Miguel jumped from the van and opened the door. Inside, Saltillo tiles covered the floor, and large ceiling fans circulated cool air. It could be any private home in Texas.
“Don’t let the decor fool you,” Trey said. “This is Miguel’s place. All the cinderblock under the stucco is steel-reinforced, just like the door. And he turned off the booby traps remotely on our way up. No one comes here without him knowing. But if it looks like too much on the outside, it attracts attention he doesn’t want.”
“Gotcha.”
“Come through here. Can I get you something to drink while we get the targets set up? Limeade, perhaps? I would offer a beer, but I have become accustomed to Mr. Harper’s men preferring not to indulge.”
“Limeade sounds good,” Jake said. The others agreed.
“And the distance?” Miguel asked as he led them through to a spotless and well-appointed kitchen.
“Five yards, ten, one-fifty, two-fifty, four hundred, and five hundred.” Trey said.
Miguel issued orders into a walkie-talkie, then served them their drinks. After they had refreshed themselves, he led them out the back to a bench facing into the desert.
“People who come sometimes ask me why I have this bench here. I say I like to sit here and watch the sun set over the desert. Which is true. But it is equally true that all the way out here, no one hears when my friends need to use the desert as a shooting range.”
An SUV pulled up and two men climbed out. “Targets are set,” said one. The other lifted the back hatch to reveal a virtual armory, all laid out nice and clean in separate compartments of a custom-designed liner with associated magazines.
Trey reached in and hefted the HK416. “I didn’t ask for a rifle for you,” he said. “Figured you were more of a pistol man. We got Glocks, Sigs, Berettas. Didn’t know your preference.”
“Sig,” Jake replied. He reached for the familiar weapon, checked the magazine, and took aim at the closest target. Unfortunately, the black outline of a man was surrounded by bright, fuzzy glow, a remnant of his concussion. Goddammit. He hadn’t noticed it driving around, but when he tried to concentrate, tried to focus on the paper waving slightly in the breeze, it reappeared.
“You okay?” Trey asked.
“I’m fine.” He squeezed off a shot. Nicked the edge of the paper.
“Really?”
“I just re-qualified three months ago, okay? New gun, new situation.”
“Three months ago you hadn’t just taken a bullet to the skull. If you can’t see, you’re just going to slow us down.”
“I can see just fine!” He sighted, adjusted, and fired again. This time he hit the chest of the silhouette.
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“Better,” grunted Trey. He, too, held a Sig Sauer. Aiming at the second target, the one thirty feet away, he fired off a series of shots. They left a nice, neat, triangular hole in the target’s head.
“Show-off,” Marco commented. He was still assembling and checking his rifle.
Jake ignored them both and continued to practice.
They stayed out on the makeshift range for two hours, putting each weapon through its paces. Then Miguel fed them lunch and drove them out to the apartment where they would stay until they made their move on the mansion.
“I have to gas up the helicopter and check it over,” he said as he helped them carry duffle bags up to the small apartment. “I’ll pick you up at oh six thirty.”
The one-bedroom apartment was furnished in early modern Goodwill, but Jake had stayed in rattier.
“Get some sleep,” Trey said. “We leave at ten thirty tonight. We’ll drive within a couple miles of the property, then hike in. The plan is to be in by oh three hundred, out in less than an hour. We’ve got three miles to the LZ.”
• • •
TIME BENT AND twisted, expanded and contracted. Deborah and Samuel came in and shouted questions at her. Samuel held a gun to her head and all Tara could think was that, if he fired, at least the peace would go on forever. Would that be such a bad thing?
Deborah injected her. Once more? Twice more? Three, four, five times? The period between the injections seemed to get longer, but that might just have been because every time she came down, her body screamed in increasing pain.
And always there were the questions, though they’d ceased to have any real meaning. Soon, they would realize she had nothing to tell them and they’d kill her.
• • •
JAKE, TREY, AND Marco approached the two-story stucco mansion in perfect silence. As well as weapons, Miguel had provided clothing and tactical gear. They all wore headsets, but at the moment stealth was their ally and words unnecessary. The weather cooperated, a heavy cloud cover hiding the three-quarter moon. Their night-vision goggles gave them a clear view, but the guards at the mansion were not likely to be so well equipped. They were about a hundred yards out from the fence marking the edge of the property when Trey called a halt.
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